


Erinyes

by ninhursag



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex Manes would really like to die for Michael Guerin, Alien Culture, Alien Technology, Captivity, Clones, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Hurt/Comfort, Id Fic, M/M, Michael Guerin would really like to die for Alex Manes, Mind Rape, Mindfuck, Rape Aftermath, Revenge, Torture, Trauma Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2020-10-18 01:49:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20631101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag
Summary: Michael and Alex are taken prisoner and tortured by a group with unknown motives. They take desperate measures to try to protect each other.A variation on a theme for Kiss So Sweet.The last thing Alex remembered clearly was opening the door of his car over by the junkyard less than a hundred yards from Guerin's trailer.  No matter how many times he went over it later he couldn't reconstruct the memory of the exact way he'd lost the fight he must have had.He remembered that he had heard the emphatic slam of the Airstream’s door. The way back over there, back to Mich-- to Guerin-- was closed after that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A major thank you to Lambourn for listening to me go on and on and nauseum about this story.
> 
> Mind the tags, please. This is pure h/c idfic with some alien drama plot attached, so know what you like.
> 
> I have a specific note in the end notes, but if you have questions feel free to message me on dreamwidth or Tumblr.

Before

The last thing Alex remembered clearly was opening the door of his car over by the junkyard less than a hundred yards from Guerin's trailer. No matter how many times he went over it later he couldn't reconstruct the memory of the exact way he'd lost the fight he must have had.

He remembered that he had heard the emphatic slam of the Airstream’s door. The way back over there, back to Mich-- to Guerin-- was closed after that.

Guerin hadn’t called out after him again once the door closed, the slam its own message.

His body had felt too warm, tingling, and his brain was buzzing, the orgasm he'd just had and the argument that had come right after and seen him run out were fucking him up. He didn’t remember what the argument was about, just that it had driven him. 

He remembered the way Guerin had looked right before Alex ran out of there. He'd been mostly naked, tawny eyes wide and wounded, still beautiful. His stupid, matted curls and the sweat on his skin. The scent of him.

The way he had managed a last, “guess you do look away, Manes Man,” before the door slammed. Michael had been nowhere near the door when it slammed.

He remembered that he had flinched at Michael's words. Because he'd maybe deserved that. Maybe he hadn’t. He couldn’t remember. It was nothing that actually mattered.

So, essentially, Alex’s situational awareness was fucked when he got to his car. He was a fucked out, unobservant, emotional mess and still had come drying on his thighs like an idiot. That had to be why he missed the guy that took him out like a fucking rank amatuer. 

He couldn't remember that part either. Damn head injuries.

Just that he was fucked and he'd fucked up and deserved everything that happened to him for that, because Michael ended up fucked too. Because that asshole didn’t let it end there and Alex should have known he wouldn’t.

There (then)

He came to hanging by numb, handcuffed wrists in a windowless room and his brain catalogued how exactingly and excruciatingly he was fucked immediately. His head hurt like he’d taken a hit, which was obviously how they got him. His prosthetic was missing and he was winched up too high to get his good foot properly on the ground. No leverage.

The cuffs felt solid and tight when he tugged on them, no give where he could break a thumb and potentially slide a hand out. If there was a pin or clip he could use as a makeshift lock-pick on him, it wasn’t anywhere he could reach.

He wasn’t alone.

One guy, sidearm belted on and a casual stance, by the door. No masks, dark hair, light eyes and high and tight military haircut that didn’t match his all black clothes. He clocked that Alex was awake and seemed to dismiss it without a word. 

Another guy was sitting at a table with a notebook and pen in front of him. Guy in charge. Sitting and looking at his watch like he was waiting for something and it wasn’t for Alex to come around. Older, but not much, maybe 40s. Smooth planed face and even features that would have been handsome if the eyes weren't so cold.

But Alex knew it was going to go to beyond the general fucked place when the door opened and in came Michael fucking Guerin, looking pale and resolute, flanked by two more thugs, with his hands cuffed behind his back. There was a bruise coming out around his eye socket and blood on his mouth and he moved like there were things wrong that weren't immediately obvious. He hadn't come as easy as Alex. At least he had his clothes on right for once, which was not how he looked when Alex last saw him.

Next fucked situation. Guerin’s stupid curly hair was visibly dusted with something, probably the pollen. Smart of the fuckers or there’d be objects flying. Well that was one potential advantage down, Guerin’s telekinesis would make a hell of a makeshift lockpick. 

It also meant they knew who and what Guerin was and how to neutralize him. It meant that the danger was as bad as it could be.

Alex resisted the urge to try to tug on the cuffs again in frustration. He wasn’t going to damage anything that way but himself and it was going to be bad enough if he got out. Dangling by the wrists wasn’t going to make his hand to hand preparedness any better.

Alex had been through training for captivity. SERE, sure, but everyone acknowledged the limitations of that. At the end of the day, the point of the training was not to destroy the resources of the US Military including its officers, so there was only so far they could go. The enemy didn't give a shit.

A childhood in the home of Master Sergeant Jesse Manes, better known as Sir, or the occasional Dad, was a better estimation of what it could be like. The goal was total breakdown, just short of incapacity or death. Alex would bet on himself to give the fuckers a run for their money-- if it were just him. 

But Dad had hit on his weak spot at age 17 and nothing much had changed in the ten years since. He was going to break now too, better just accept that and let it go with minimal damage.

Except, when he opened his mouth to say that, to just offer unconditional surrender, that fucking dumbass macho cowboy asshole Guerin beat him to it.

"Look, let me lay this out. I'll do whatever you want if you let Alex go," he said, voice steady and low, not looking at Alex who was frantically mouthing 'what the fuck, no'. "You let him walk away and you will not hear a damned word out of me. It's a good offer-- he's a fucking war hero-- people are going to care if he goes missing."

"No," Alex spit out, even if he’d have liked to evaluate longer before making a move. His voice ground out roughly. Protocol would be to get out in any way possible and then seek help from a better position, more resources. But protocol meant that Guerin could disappear into any black site with a fingersnap of some paperpushing Nazi in the forces without Alex having a clue where he'd gone. 

Caulfield had been enough, he already had his nightmares about his Mich-- Guerin-- there. Like one of those ruined, caged ghosts, tortured and trapped. Rat in a room, bug on a board. "You're not keeping him. I will fucking find a way to destroy you. I will make you public, put you out there on fucking CNN if I have to." 

"Alex, shut up," Guerin hissed like the idiot he was. “Stop talking.”

"Captain Manes, you should listen to the freak," their captor, or one of them, unnamed and not the guy in charge, said. He had hazel eyes, lighter than Michael's and they glinted with amusement. Ok, calling him by his rank, that meant military, despite the lack of uniforms? Or off the books? CIA? "Not that it matters, neither one of you is going anywhere until the bosses get what they want."

Alex took a deep breath, steadying and forced himself to look right at Guerin and project reassurance as much as he could. And to make that asshole shut up. "You're making a mistake. He's right, we're not just going to disappear without it drawing notice."

"Captain, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but recently discharged disabled vets who live in the desert disappear all the time. So does the town drunk, even if he happens to be an extraterrestrial."

Alex didn't, didn't, couldn't argue that one. There were people, resources on the outside that were going to notice, but he wasn't going to blow them without being asked. Guerin did not want that.

That idiot looked at him now, honey-hazel eyes, bruised face and dried blood flaking in his hair. He looked worried. Afraid. And Alex didn't know how to protect him.

This was nightmare material, deep and brittle, every failure he’d had looking him right in the eye. "What do you want from us?" Alex forced his voice to calm, to steady, by breathing through it. “Is it drugs? You know extraterrestrials aren’t really real, right?”

The guy in charge smiled faintly. The thugs were looking at Alex but him, he only had eyes for Guerin now. Speculative, curious and dangerous as fuck.

Smiling.

Now (Here)

They were running, running, running. It was dark, starlit and moonless, the lights of the complex behind them the only thing that showed the path.

Michael was half carrying Alex, who was still down a leg, more with his power than his body, propelling them both forward. Run run run. Alex could smell the dry, rotten air, the faint powdery pollen that was more of a remnant. Blood. 

Something else over it. Worse. Michael, his Michael, held together by sheer stubbornness and scraps of alien power. His Michael, not-- not anything else. 

Alex could feel him behind his eyes, in his head, on his skin, skin he knew would be glowing softly right with the imprint of Michael’s hand over his heart if he took the time to look down. He could feel Michael and his not quite there stretch of thoughts that said put one foot in front of the other one, run, we have to run. Michael’s mind like patchwork and glue over the vast pit of what had happened.

Run run run, he gasped. The words rang in his head, but he didn't know who was thinking them. It was the right thing to do, escape and evade, go to ground, focus Manes, you’re supposed to be a professional.

He’d be crawling in the dirt without Michael, some professional.

Michael's face was wet, his hands were wet, he stank. His skin was so warm anyway, burning with power. Alex's body was sore, rotten, overused, useless.

But there, in a ditch, over a hill, was Michael's truck.

"How?" Alex heard himself pant. "What's it doing here?"

Alex couldn't see, but he could feel the way Michael's mouth twisted painfully, throbbing through the connection between them. Glint of the whites of his eyes flashing in the dark. Michael’s hands on him, sharing a memory, driving this way, fear, guilt, determination. He’d seen Alex taken, pushed into a van, too fast to stop it. He’d seen and gone after them. 

"Was coming to rescue you. ‘S our getaway car, obviously."

Alex barked a laugh. It hurt, his throat was so sore, his lungs ached. "Well, thanks. Never do that again."

Michael rolled his eyes but there was a smile in it, behind it. Deathshead but real. "I won't if you won't." 

“Guerin, are you--” Michael wasn't ok, he could feel it. That wasn’t-- that wasn’t even the thing between them, making him feel it. No one, human or not, would be in breathing distance of fine.

But Michael still gripped his arm, hard. Fingers digging into bruises, painful but solid. Real. Giving weight and depth to their link by the grip, physical skin on his. “I’m Michael. Best I can give you right now, sweetheart.”

Alex shut his mouth and let himself be half dragged up into the cab. The seatbelt was buckled around him with exquisite gentleness. He didn't protest that he could get that himself. It calmed Michael's spiraling thoughts to do it, he could feel that.

The engine turned over and the truck rumbled to a start with no keys in it. Michael again, before he had even climbed inside. The car lights came on, dull and dim but still letting Alex see the damage better. See how Michael was wincing when he moved.

“You gonna stay with me?” Alex whispered.

“Yeah?” was the answer, so soft, with bedrock underneath. “Yeah.”

He kept his hand on Michael’s thigh while he drove, feeling the warm, living flesh under his palm.

There (then)

They didn't want information, or if they did it was not the kind they'd share with their mouths. Fucked situation number infinity.

They asked some perfunctory questions, but Alex could tell it was bullshit even with a throbbing head and not a lot of thought. He’d watch interrogations, been interrogated. This was an excuse, not a question and answer session. 

That was worse in terms of where this was probably going. It meant the violence was the point.

It was the men who’d brought Guerin in asking questions. Not guy in charge, who just sat at the damn table, watching, cataloging, taking notes. 

Alex watched him but he didn’t look disturbed. Maybe intrigued, obviously paying more attention than he wanted to project. Alex wasn't important to him, it was Michael.

Which wasn't true for the rest. They were talking to Guerin but the sidelong looks were all at Alex, gauging his response.

They asked--

_Are there others?_

_Have you found ship parts?_

_What's the Antarian plan?_

Michael had answers. Like, you're crazy, we're in the middle of a desert, I don't have a fucking ship. What's an antara-what? Have you taken your meds today, asshole?

The last one got him one to the nose that left him freshly bleeding and grinning with all his teeth like the punch was a prize he’d won.

"I thought you'd do anything for Captain Manes?" The man asking the questions said, like it was funny. Alex decided his name was going to dead guy # 1. “Can’t tell the truth for him?”

Michael laughed with real hysteria until he was coughing, blood on his face, on his teeth. Alex could smell blood. "I am telling the truth. I could make shit up, if you wanted?"

Dead guy # 2 took that as a cue to punch him again, against the jaw, knocking him back. Not stopping the coughing. Alex just watched, teeth grinding together, memorising the shape of the fucker's face. They were all going down.

Michael just kept grinning like he thought blood and bruises were just fine, showing his teeth again. "Aww, ok, no stories. I could sing you a song."

That drew out another punch in the gut, that left Michael breathless. He didn’t stand up all the way and Alex narrowed his eyes, trying to keep an eye on the way his body moved. Michael had started out moving wrong, like he hurt from the beginning, he wasn’t ok now. If Alex got out of his cuffs, he wasn’t sure of the physicality of getting out of here. 

He sucked in a deep breath. “Why don’t you ask me?” His voice came out cold as he wanted it to. 

The dead guy of indeterminate number had chilly, red rimmed blue eyes when he looked at Alex. They reminded him of dad's. He put on his best mocking smile. 

"Why, do you have some information to share, Captain?"

Alex rolled his eyes. "No little green Antarians but I met Santa on a long dark highway on a snowy Christmas Eve."

"You think this is going to get you somewhere?" dead guy #2 asked.

Guy in charge though, he looked up, actually looked at Alex this time, and smiled. Just a little. 

"Ah," said guy in charge. Dead guy 2 looked back at him, pausing. Guy in charge gave a thoughtful nod. "You can tell Captain Manes about how we knew about him and Mr. Guerin."

Alex blinked.

"Right. We have a message for you, Captain Manes," said dead guy #2. "From the Master Sergeant."

And Alex could feel himself get colder, hands still numb in the cuffs. "Is that right?" He forced himself to say.

"He wants to let you know we are going to destroy the thing you love and we're going to make you watch." And while he talked dead guy # 1 walked over to Guerin, vulnerable Michael, and grabbed him by the hair.

There was no processing time. Alex fought again, helpless rage stealing the last of his strength. It wasn't going to be enough.

Michael fought back then too, but his hands were still cuffed and he was battered. Dead guy # 2 strode over to help and it was easy for them to get him down.

They pushed Michael down, sprawled over the table, wrists uncuffed and cuffed again now so they were stretched out over his head.

Guy in charge was less than a foot away, at that table, making notes like none of it affected him at all. He was watching Michael when he watched at all, like he was waiting for something.

Alex might have yelled something, but they didn’t do more than look back at him and smile. Panic and rage and fear froze up in him.

This was off, this was all off and he couldn’t fucking think. He could watch. He could hear the sound of it.

Why? The pain was the point, the pain was the point, that would make sense if it was dad, but-- guy in charge wasn’t looking at him. His pain was what was incidental, not the point. 

The sound Michael made, gasping, like he was choking, hard, painful swallows. Alex blinked and pulled as hard as he could, he could feel the blood on his wrists from the bite of the cuffs, he had to stop this wasn’t helping.

"Don't watch. Don't look," he heard when Michael hissed out. But Alex couldn't look away. 

"Leave him alone," Alex bit down on the words. "Leave him the fuck alone."

"Awww, would you rather we do you, fag?" A dead guy said, laughing. "We'd love to, but regs are, we have to respect the rights of prisoners."

"Super respectful, this guy," Michael managed, still gasping, breathless. The guy kicked him in the back of the knee, pushing his legs further apart. Alex bit back a scream, an order, a protest. That maybe made it better for them, knowing this hurt him too, how much this hurt him. Or it made it worse for Michael, his being here made this worse for Michael, that’s why he was here, it had to be? His pain was incidental.

There was a hand, rough, pulling, in Michael's hair. "Oh, don't worry. You're not a prisoner. You're a creature."

"Oh, nice, you fuck creatures. Go you, you dick for brains," Michael muttered, to the sound of hard edged laughter and another kick in the ribs.

"Guerin stop," Alex shouted, helpless then. His pain wasn’t the point. There had to be-- but there wasn’t anything.

There was laughter. "Yeah, Guerin, stop. Be nice and maybe this will hurt a little less."

Michael didn't scream, but he gagged, bitter, like someone had shoved a hand into-- no.

Alex couldn't look and couldn't look away. His hands clenched, short nails digging into palms when he wanted to rip. His hands were hot and bloody. He needed a fucking lockpick. How had he been caught out without a fucking pin, something he could get?

Even if he had one, he was barely touching the ground. 

He couldn’t get the grip he needed to if he was going to try to force his way out. Maybe the swivel mechanism was broken and he could get out that way? But he’d need leverage to break a thumb and get out of the cuffs. 

Even if he got out of the cuffs, he was one guy. There were four in here, guard at the door, boss still watching from the table, two on Michael. 

But this was Michael. He was failing again.

"I'll kill you," he hissed even though he shouldn’t, even though Michael didn’t want him to. "You don't even know you're dead, but you are."

They laughed then.

Not later, they wouldn’t laugh. He was going to show them later, what was funny.

It sounded like Michael was choking. It sounded like he was stifling every sound as best he could. 

A half cut off-- "Don't look. Alex, don't."

Alex looked away, finally, the stifled, choking demand too much. Too bad he couldn't cover his ears because he could still picture every damn thing. He could fucking smell it.

Here (now)

There was an unsteadiness to Michael, breathless and wide eyed while he put the truck in drive and steered it out onto the road. Like he couldn't understand how he got here. His hands clung to the steering wheel and there were no words for a while.

"Where. Where are we going?" Alex finally whispered.

Michael shook his head. "Away from here. I have a place. It’ll be safe."

Michael drove until they ran low on gas and then stopped at a 24 hour place. There were dark stains on the seat when he got up. 

He had cash in the glove compartment, fished out some bills. 

There was blood on the seat where he’d been.

"Put on a coat," Alex whispered. He’d do worse than Michael, legless, limping blood on his arms.

Michael turned and stared at him, confused. Blinked.

"You look like you've been--" Alex tried and stopped. He couldn’t say the word out loud, but then Michael hadn’t either. "They're going to call 911 when they see you."

Michael's expression didn't clear, but he pulled a long coat from the truck bed before he paid for the gas.

Then (there)

They left the room after, left Michael, half naked with his jeans around his ankles and deadly silent other than the involuntary sounds.

Alex was not sobbing. Not in a way that made noise. His face was wet. His body felt bruised and untouched all at once. The blood that had dripped down from his wrists was congealing around his forearms. 

Guy in charge was still there. Or maybe he left and came back? Time wasn’t working right.

Focus. Focus. If you don't focus you'll miss it if you get a chance. That’s on you.

Guy in charge had a hypodermic needle in his hand. Had he always had a needle in his hand? 

"Old friend," he said, and smiled. And smiled. That smile, what? And put his hand on Michael's flinching head, in his hair. "You are so weak like this. I have never seen you this weak."

Michael whimpered, and it was this awful helpless noise and he tried, painfully to get away. He had no leverage to move, like Alex had no leverage to move.

There were wods, half heard. "Don't worry, I'm going to give you back what Mara kept from you."

At that point Alex understood that this particular dead guy wasn't human and things that had never made sense started to slot into place, slowly.

Things were happening disjointed, out of phase by then, his body numb. But he knew humans didn't have glowing hands. They didn't have eyes reflecting fire. Alex still knew that.

The man smiled like this was the best sight he'd ever seen, Michael with his hands cuffed, spread over the table. Spread open, barely moving.

Don't look, Alex, Michael doesn't want you to see.

Alex concentrated on himself, not looking, hanging by his wrists, his one fucking toe scraping the floor. Stress position, meant to wear at him. It was working, but not as well as the smell of Michael’s pain.

The man, the alien, smiled and walked up to Michael's prone, worn out body and he said, "this was all so unnecessary." He tapped the needle for air pockets, easy, like he was used to doing that. Michael’s arms were bare and stretched out, veins easy to access.

Michael tried to lift his head, eyes wide and glassy, lips moving a little but soundlessly. Alex blinked sweat out of his eyes and stared. 

"Let me release you," the alien crooned and Michael's handcuffs clicked open, all at once.  
He slid down onto the floor almost instantly, into a puddle, like his strings had been cut. There was a pained gasp that should have been a scream. Alex knew viscerally what it would feel like, sensation returning to his hands. If he got out of this alive, his body would be a fucked up mess. 

Not. Not fucked.

"Michael," Alex whispered, voice like sandpaper. Michael turned his head, made a soft, miserable noise. But the man, the alien, turned then, and looked at Alex, drawn by the sound of his voice.

Grinned. "Oh, right, the good Sergeant Major's son. Your father’s a real booby prize, boy. Easy to manipulate." Strode right over and for the first moment in too long Alex breathed in all the way when the alien leaned in real close. “But you, you’re something special, aren’t you?”

He wasn't looking at Michael. Right then, if he was looking at Alex he wasn't looking at Michael.

Of course Michael couldn’t let it go. From somewhere, he got the energy to sit up, to move. “Don’t touch him,” he hissed, anger back in his voice. “Don’t you touch him.”

Those words, Alex heard him in his nightmares. I'm going to destroy the thing you love and I'm going to make you watch. He couldn't look at Michael.

He looked at the guy-- the alien instead.

"Let him go," he said, soft, desperate. "Stop hurting him. Tell me what you want and I'll do it."

All he got was a tongue click and an amused smile. "He isn't what you need to worry about. Did anyone tell you human lives make us stronger? And when he's himself again, he'll be hungry."

Alex made a sound, sharp and miserable and his skin crawled. "If you let him go," he started.

"You're delicious." The alien looked back over his shoulder. Michael he was looking at-- no. "Don't worry, old friend. He's yours when you're ready. Just a taste for me."

It touched him, on his skin. Under his shirt, right over his heart.

The touch was so cold but it burned. He grit back a scream at the sharp burn of it.

"Do you see, my hand on your lover's skin? Maybe you would have flayed me for this, if he mattered to you."

Alex tried to twist away, barely hearing the man over the roaring in his ears. He could feel it, pulsing through his body. Emotions-- triumph, arousal, amusement, pleasure. The scarred and wrecked human body under his hands, the way that bleeding man with someone else's golden eyes shouted at him. Rath's eyes, just the same, but tear filled. Weak. It made this fucker so hard, seeing the weakness. Alex could feel it, all of it like toxic sludge pressed up against him. 

Overwhelming. Another world, where that man, that golden eyed man, was a thousand years old and ruled on a river of blood with his siblings. 

He pushed back.

Not Rath-- this was Michael, his Michael, playing his guitar at seventeen, cupping his face and kissing him like the world would stop when the kiss did. His Michael who tried to put his body between Alex's and the world. Who had tried.

"I'm not him," Michael, his Michael, hissed. "But I will fucking kill you."

The thing's echo in Alex's head found that so funny. Alex's mental shove. Michael's talk, his threats. So meaningless.

"Old friend. When you're yourself again, you'll probably reward me with a piece of this. If you don't consume it yourself."

Michael drew a vicious, hissing breath. "You're wrong. Eamon, I will fucking ruin you."

The slow, spreading smile on the alien's face made Alex feel so cold. 

"Oh. You remember me now, do you?'


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The images came too fast and hard to process. Death, Mara, that traitor, the clones, death, the wars. Blood. Rath was gone, replaced by something weak, something else, a clone allowed to grow on its own, perverting power with weakness.
> 
> A room with an open domed ceiling, unfamiliar stars. A curly haired child with honey-brown eyes, shaking with quiet resignation. Excited with righteous promise and purpose. Begging on his knees not to die. Offering up his body with stoic resignation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings -- nothing new, very much mind the tags.
> 
> Thanks to Lambourn for pre-reading and telling me this was hitting the emotional beats I wanted and generally cheerleading ❤️

There (then)

The alien, Eamon, Michael called him, like he knew exactly who he was, smiled with something like bright relief.

Alex could feel it through the forced link, seeing the end of this nightmare because Rath knew him now. The pleasure of it. The certainty. 

Rath would feed on the humans that had been arranged for him. Starting with this one (Alex) and that would stamp out any traces of the clone personality.

Consuming-- killing. This would end and they could return home and take what was theirs.

The images came too fast and hard to process. Death, Mara, that traitor, the clones, death, the wars. Blood. Rath was gone, replaced by something weak, something else, a clone allowed to grow on its own, perverting power with weakness.

A room with an open domed ceiling, unfamiliar stars. A curly haired child with honey-brown eyes, shaking with quiet resignation. Excited with righteous promise and purpose. Begging on his knees not to die. Offering up his body with stoic resignation.

Again and again and again, that room, that child. Young. Seven? 

It always ended the same, an injection and the way it took moments at least, hours at most, to crush out whatever expression was on that child's face. Then there was something else, something old and hungry.

Something that needed strength.

Alex's mind peeled under the onslaught, pressure and violence and noise, the way he'd known it would eventually from his training, from his experience. 

His mouth moved, but the words that came out weren't his.

“Old friend,” Eamon said. “I’ll leave you to this.”

Michael had been injected. Now it was just a matter of time.

Alex's mind skittered off into the dark.

Now

Michael was more than equipped for roughing it, candles and sleeping bags, protein bars that were a few steps over rations taste-wise. 

Alex lit two of the candles, still hopping like an idiot against the side of the truck for support. He wasn't getting that prosthetic back any time soon, not even a crutch out here. One more weakness in his body, one more loss.

"Stop it, I can hear you thinking," Michael muttered without looking away from the candles as Alex lit the second one.

They were quiet for a while.

Michael's eyes were so dark in the candlelight, just glints of gold. There were bruises shadowing his face. He looked like he was hypnotized kneeling there not quite next to Alex in his torn clothes. All alone, all of what Alex had failed to protect.

"I'm sorry," Alex whispered and Michael's chin rose and he looked at him, confused, like he hadn't expected anyone to be there.

"Why?" Michael asked with a painful shrug. "You didn't do anything."

"Right. I didn't. You came to save me. I didn't save you," Alex said.

Michael's mouth curled down and he shook his head. His stupid curls were matted, filthy. “Actually you did. And you wouldn't have been in trouble in the first place without--"

"No." Alex glared at him. "That's not your fault."

"Alex." Michael swallowed hard, eyes glittering in the candle light. "I can't-- can we stop? Please can we not do this?"

Alex sat back hard and nodded. "I'm sorry," he whispered again. "Guerin," Alex said. Stopped. He’d been told to stop.

"Yeah. Look. Listen. I am, ok?" Michael replied. Almost gentle in his tone. "I told you. I'm still-- I am. You can feel that, can't you?"

Alex couldn't close his eyes, he'd still see the same thing, just behind his eyelids. "Ok. That's not what I meant. I meant, I'm sorry I didn't do anything. You saved me. I didn't--"

"That's-- Alex. No. That's not what I said either." Michael was still looking at him straight out now, but focused suddenly. Alex could feel the snap of his attention. "You fucking saved me, you did. And you amped up my alien superpowers, Lois, chill out already, would you?"

Alex choked. "Chill out? Seriously?"

Michael sighed. Exhausted, put upon. Present, because he needed to be. "Yes, Alex. Seriously. You think you didn't save me because you're an idiot. I'm me." He grimaced. "That wasn't necessarily how this was going to end." 

"Um," Alex managed.

"Come here," Michael said, with another almost sigh.

"I--" Alex said, stopping. Like he didn't know if he could. Did Michael really want--

He did. Michael was the one who shifted over. Bit his lip, like he was suppressing a whimper. Close, he was suddenly close. "Ok. Would you? Alex, please."

Alex didn't ask, please what? He didn't have to. Michael was there, suddenly, in his arms, pressed against his bruises. It hurt. Pain meant life. Michael was alive.

He was holding Michael's warm, breathing body, holding him hard. Tucking his head over the top and it hurt and it was a terrible, bitter relief. He sobbed.

He could feel the echoes of the truth, that Michael meant everything he said. 

There (then)

At some point the door locked with a resounding, echoing click. Alex heard a bolt dragged across it, solid sounding. They were alone for the first time.

Michael still looked at him like he was Michael, at least for now. The child, it was always a child the injected, not an adult. 

So it was him and Michael, for however long it was Michael. With a voice coming from inside his head reminding him how much of this didn't need to continue if he just...

Michael lay where he'd been dropped, sprawled out on the ground, too still. He was breathing, Alex could see that. His face was pressed into the floor. There was water dripping down his back, over the bare lines of his spine, the bones of his face, matting his curls. Alex had no idea where it had come from.

He couldn't-- he tried-- he had tried-- the cuffs on his wrists still had no give, he had no tools to get out of them. Nothing had changed, other than that Michael had something in his head that was going to consume them both.

Alex was the one who sobbed, finally, trying to find the purchase he didn't have, get his foot under him, get closer, do anything. That was what made Michael move, finally. 

"It washed off," he croaked. "He washed it off me."

"What?" Alex whispered. 

Michael shook his head, pushing up painfully to something like a crouching position. “That stuff, the pollen,” he said. "Means I can. It can." Alex just blinked. Michael stared at him, eyes still blank, almost sightless. 

Then the lock on his handcuffs clicked itself open and the handcuffs he’d been fighting released him, just like that. He would have fallen right down, could almost feel the impact of the ground on his body, but something held him up, something carefully, gently, eased him down. Energy, thrumming through him.

It felt like the hand on his skin, but not like the other one, so much warmer. Michael's powers were so careful and gentle with him, like Michael's hands. Like he was something other than what he was.

It hurt anyway, life coming back to his hands, his arms. Bright pain through the muscle so sharp he had to clamp his jaw shut around a scream. The spasms still kept him down. Weak.

Michael was the one who crawled over to him. He looked gone, dissociated. Just enough of him there to focus on Alex's face, like it took up his field of vision.

“Alex. He was right,” Michael whispered, hoarse and confused, like he was seeing something different than the small space closing in on them. “I can feel-- it. That. His old fucking friend. What Eamon wants me to be. In my head. It's. He's promising me things I could use. Access to power. Things it-- he knows."

"What?" Alex asked, voice coming out blasted from the screams he hadn't let out and the ones he had. He could still feel everything also, the things the other thing had made him feel in his own head, echoes of pleasure and amusement in the human's fear and shame.

His own fear and shame.

But he couldn't let that show. Michael's eyes were still so wide, blank, before he managed to swallow, refocus on Alex's face. Alex breathed in, a ten count, then out, letting Michael see him, follow him. “Guerin? Michael? Can you hear my voice? Tell me what you hear.”

Michael's body was shaking against his, close and real. Hard, painful tremors, muscle like rock. Sweat and blood stink of him.

"I-- I hear you. Alex," he whispered, in that hoarse voice, scream ruined. They didn't quite touch. "We really need to get you out of here. He can help."

"Michael," Alex said back. Soft, but steadfast. "I'm not fucking leaving you with that in your head." Like he had a choice.

Michael shook his head. "You're not paying attention. What about when I stop being Michael?"

Alex's hands tightened on his arms, tugging, pulling. "I don't care about that. If you die here, I die here."

Michael's eyes squeezed closed. "Not gonna happen." 

"By making a deal with an ancient alien general? The one who wants to erase you and take over your body?"

"Yeah." There was another pause. "Him. He would know how to get out of here. It. He is that-- a tactician. He knows how to use my, our powers in ways I don't."

Alex swallowed. "Maybe. And you let him do that and-- what? He takes over. You stop being you?"

Michael bit his lower lip. "I know what Eamon said, but he won't hurt you, that's not on the table. I believe that. He'll make the deal I want to get you out."

Alex's fucked up hands twitched. He didn't believe that, but it didn't matter what he believed. When Michael was gone, he was meat to that thing. But then when Michael was gone… fuck. "That's not what I asked."

"That's not important."

"In what fucking way is it not important?" Alex demanded.

Michael's laugh was dry, bitter. He scrubbed at his face with one hand and Alex wanted desperately to grab at it but couldn't make his own work right. "Oh come on. You didn't even want me before. After what you saw-- what happened-- that hasn't changed."

Blinding rage and adrenaline stole Alex's breath. It felt almost good, powerful where he was weak, wiping out the pain momentarily. Maybe he could get up. Or crawl. Or something. 

"Fuck that, you're right nothing's changed, I'm here," he said, words coming out in a rush. Michael's expression was still blank, exhausted. Alex paused. 

"Ok," Michael said, but at least he looked more confused than bleak when he said it. Maybe that was better?

Alex tried again, struggling against words, sense memory, the sensations of hands on his skin. Of being nothing. Words. "You're the asshole that popped my cherry when we were 17, Guerin. You're mine," he blurted out.

Michael stared at him and shook his head, like that was almost cute. But he maybe smiled. "Sure. But we still wanna put some space between us and that asshole alien."

Alex blinked and then glared and didn't smile. "Is that supposed to be a joke?"

"Alex. You're a mess, and I'm not a soldier." Michael took another deep breath. "I'm not getting you killed like, like at Caulfield. You're not dying because I don't know what the fuck I'm doing."

Ok, this was still not working. He was explaining it wrong. Try again. "You're not a soldier, but I am. I can do what needs doing."

"You can't physically stand up, Alex. He can if-- What he knows would be in my head, I could do what he could if I were him."

Which wasn't the point. "I could be in your head, couldn't I? Like Max did with Liz? Like-- the other one did with- to me." Alex took a deep breath. How to make the words make sense? 

He took another agonizing breath, looked Michael right in the eye and tried to let how he felt show against every instinct to hide, to shelter his fear under layers of stoicism. Tear it down and let the tearing panic show through so Michael could see it. "Michael, listen, could you listen, please, he's in my head. Right now. I need you to get him out."

"What?" Michael's eyes went wide with horror and he shifted closer. And just like that, he seemed to focus, the blank distance wiped out.

Huh. Should have led with that. Too bad letting himself finally, really feel it made the last of his personal reserves crack.

His breaths came faster, harder, it, the thing that was the alien, that was Eamon, thought that was funny, his fears and determination. It liked him on some level, like you'd be fond of a cute but unfamiliar dog. One that humped your best friend's leg. Or a thing, a hole to fuck, something that--

It was in his head, thinking about him that way.

"Alex," Michael hissed, closer almost on him, but still from too far away.

"Get it out of me," he managed. Michael moved like his body hurt, too slow.

"Oh fuck, Alex." Something painful and terrified relaxed when he could finally feel Michael’s breath on his skin, so close to him now, one breath, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten. Then in. Again. Michael. “Yeah, yeah. I’m not gonna let it hurt you. Can I? I need, um, to touch you for this to work.”

Alex swallowed, feeling the pain in his throat instead of just his arms and hands and body. Right. Focus. “Whatever you need.”

He saw it coming, of course he did, when Michael pulled up his shirt. The skin over his pec, right by his heart was glowing. Fingerprints, palm print, sensations. That thing. That thing that had touched him. Reached inside and pushed.

Michael’s hand rested right over it. Not quite touching but close enough to feel the warmth. He met Alex’s eyes head on. A faint, bitter smile. Bruises on his face. “You sure?” he whispered. 

Like that was even a question. “Yeah, I'm sure. Get him out of me.”

Michael’s hand glowed, like that-- like that thing’s had. It was different, he could swear it was different. Warmer, softer.

Michael's hand was so warm over his heart. It leached out the cold on his skin, pulled at the fear and panic and invasion of mind, soothed it down.

"Sweetheart," Michael murmured to him, hand still on his heart. "He can't fucking touch you anymore."

Michael's mind felt warm and careful, a door held open in invitation, not an invasion. Alex was the one who slipped inside.

Warmth blossomed everywhere, soft and protective, it took him a moment to remember where they were, what they needed, to understand he was being sheltered here in the conscious part of Michael's mind. Beloved.

But there was something beyond that. Michael tried to block it off when Alex looked, not pushing, more evading, hiding it away, distracting him with softness. And Alex, who was trained in evasion, could see it easily.

Outside of this carefully built place where Michael was holding him, his mind was chaos. Grief and choking horror. Thick, humiliating strands of violation and helplessness.

Michael had been-- they chained him down and-- the smell, the stink, from Alex's memory, laughter and slick sounds of flesh. Michael's mind overlaid it with how it felt, impersonal and painful, like a doll, a thing, fucked into and.

Alex could have touched other memories like this and unlike, locked away in a room behind bars and padlocks and a retinal scan security system, and some of them were Michael's and some of them were-- that was his own.

"No," he heard himself. "We can't right now. We have to get out of here."

And Alex stood in the center of the chaos that was Michael's mind, still held and sheltered as best as Michael could allow it and there he met a man who was a thousand years old, older, with that same beloved face.

The same and different from the memories that had been pushed at him. The casual cruelty overwritten by something else.

The man smiled at him, Michael's honey gold eyes crinkling around the edges. "So you're the shield brother," he said. "He'd give his soul to save you."

And Alex just blinked, because that was a new one. Michael always did catch him by surprise. 

"Your old friend thought of me more as the human whore," he said, meeting it head on.

"He won't when we're done with him," said the smiling man. 

"I won't let him give up his soul," Alex said, because that part at least made sense. He needs military know-how? I've got it.

"No," the man wearing Michael's face conceded. "There's a reason we don't use full grown clones. Too young and the body's not useful, the mind underformed. Too old and we get other issues. Like you."

"But that's not it-- you're not infecting him. He's infecting you," Alex breathed.

That smile, it was a thousand years old. And it was also Michael's, honey slow. I never look away. "Oh, sweetheart, shield brother, mine. You're exactly the reason why he's infecting me. Now let's you and me burn this shithole down to the ground."

Now

"Where are we headed?" Alex finally asked.

Michael just shrugged, eyes on the road. His body still moved wrong, pain and hesitation in the movements, in the line between his brows, that wasn't permitted in his voice. "Got a place up in the desert. Hidden and stocked. Thank fuck for preppers."

Alex stared at him. "Defensible. I remember you said that?"

"If it's not, we have your know how to get it there." Michael's smile was real and soft.

They drove.

Michael’s place, the one he’d prepped was off road, barely a track to get there. It looked like a shack but there was a bunker underneath. 

“It’s defensible, see,” Michael promised again. Alex nodded, taking in the site, the distance, the vantage points and approaches. They'd see someone coming, not a lot of nearby cover to hide behind. A sniper could probably get a good aim from further out if they knew what to look for. But that was a big if.

"Is it on the grid?" He asked though this far out it seemed unlikely.

"Nope. I've got a well and a generator. Mostly runs on solar though." Michael managed a real smile. "Won it off an asshole prepper in a game of cards at the Pony. Mimi DeLuca helped me set up the title so it can't be traced back to me."

The inside was surprisingly tidy, if dusty. A kitchen. A separate bedroom.

Alex blinked when there were a pair of crutches that looked a lot like the customized ones he'd left in Roswell leaned up against the inside wall when they went in. He was leaning heavily on Michael, hopping like an idiot and the sight just felt like relief.

"How?" he managed to ask.

Michael just shrugged. "After you came back to Roswell, I wanted to be sure that if you needed-- this place is for break the glass emergencies. I saw your custom set up, this should work for you."

"You saw my-- when? I don't know whether to be creeped out or impressed." Alex felt a burst of rare, uncomplicated warmth through their connection.

Michael shrugged and ducked his head. "This qualifies as a break the glass emergency."

Alex shook his head. "Yeah," he managed. He picked up a crutch. It was light and perfect, titanium and the grip fit his arm. It wasn't the same as the prosthetic but it would get him around.

He took in a deep breath as he managed to stand up, fucking finally. "Thank you," he said.

Michael grinned at him, exhausted but visibly pleased with himself. "De nada. I totally built this for the zombie apocalypse, but evil aliens and government conspiracies will have to do." 

Alex swallowed. "So did you say we had clean water? Shower?"

Michael's grin faded. "Yeah. Hot water heater too. Come on."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm putting in a pin in this story but there will be a sequel once I have cleared out some of my WIPs and can give it my full attention. At least that's the plan.
> 
> In the meantime have some Michael and Alex being ill advised messes post escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: rape aftermath
> 
> Characters have ill advised trauma sex and should have had therapy instead.
> 
> Um, if anyone's reading this, I really appreciate you!

There 

There's a lot Alex will never remember from what happened after. He was Michael, or Michael was him. The careful space that Michael had carved out in the safest, softest parts of his mind cradled Alex while the storm raged outside. It made him angry, that Michael was struggling, scared, and he was here and safe.

It made him shake with the force of their combined rage. They sat down together, he and the thing that was and wasn’t Michael, in a space that seemed like too many command and control centers he’d run before. They were impossibly close, the two of them, covering every weakness, using his knowledge.

"I'm stronger with you, sweetheart, they were idiots to have missed that." That was his Michael, smiling at him when he shared some knowledge, codes and protocols.

He felt Michael’s power thrumming under his skin, electric, over his heart. The spike of promised death of them, those fuckers who-- and he was only disappointed he didn’t kill them himself like he wanted to.

There was a lot he didn’t remember, but he remembered the crash afterwards, running, running running, into the dark, cold and back in his own body, half carried, half cradled by Michael’s powers. 

//

Now

They didn’t do much before hitting the showers, just paused for Michael to raid his stash of acetone and dig up a beer for Alex. 

The hot water tank had pretty strict limits, Michael told him. Michael was more apologetic about that then the rest of it, and he was plenty sorry about the rest. "Do you need anything else?" he asked. "I put in grab bars, a seat, but?"

And yeah the fucking bathroom was modified, more hastily than the rest of the set-up but someone-- Michael-- had thought about it, done the research. This was another thing that had been done for him, for no particular reason.

“How long have you been planning this, Guerin?” Alex muttered, shaking his head.

Michael made a face and gave a shrug. “Break the glass emergencies,” he repeated easily, without really answering the question.

“Ok.” Alex sucked in a deep breath of air. “Can I ask something else?”

“Yeah. Of course," Michael said, way too easily. There was a pause before he added, "What do you need?”

Alex looked at him, just looked. Searching, with hope in his shrug. "Can I, um, can you come with me? In the shower."

Michael blinked. His expression shifted, something tired and bleak there again, not what Alex had expected, but then he said, "Are you saying I stink, Captain?"

He did, was the thing. He still smelled like-- Alex wanted to-- he didn't, couldn't come up with a blow off response. Michael's face, the sense memory of the smell and--

"I can feel you, Guerin," Alex whispered. "Our minds haven't exactly disconnected and I'm not gonna pretend I can't."

Michael flinched, feeling what Alex did, reflecting it back. Just a small movement, just enough to be visible. "Well, you're right," he said, softly. "I do stink. You shouldn't have to deal with this, the mind shit, any of it."

That, that untangled Alex's words again, shoving everything back. He could feel Michael, the echo of exhaustion, the bitter knife of shame. "Don't. Stop." 

"It wasn't exactly sexy," Michael muttered. Alex tried not to show his own agonized response. "You don't have to-- what you saw. I'd understand if you weren't interested in--

"Guerin. Stop. Stop," Alex hissed, finally pushing back mentally with his own feelings. "Don't do this, stop."

Michael stopped, abruptly. Eyes sliding closed. "I've got you in my head and I still don't get you," he mumbled.

Alex followed him into the bathroom wordlessly, fighting back the urge to shout out that he wasn't the one who was complicated. 

Michael adjusted the water temperature while Alex pulled off his own clothes. His wrists were still covered in dried blood, flaky and repulsive. It had stained his shirt. There were no other wounds on him, he didn't think, just bruises. He should have had a goose egg or something from getting hit, the hands should be in worse shape than they were, but there was nothing. Just the glowing mark of Michael's palm on his chest covering up the--

It was obscene, that he didn't really have any marks on him.

Michael's bare back was all colors, red and purple, the beginning of green, finger marks and--

Michael turned back and looked at him, eyes golden and narrow. The hint of living green. 

"Can you stop too," Michael said. "I can feel you too and that doesn't help. The way you’re feeling. It doesn’t help either of us."

Alex repressed the urge to snap back that it wasn’t like he could fucking help what he was feeling. What the fuck was he supposed to feel? Instead he made himself breath. "Ok. What would?"

Michael Guerin kissed him then, which should not have surprised him but Michael hadn’t known he was about to do it either.

Light, a press of lips, deep, banked hunger. Low level fear. Warmth. Alex, Alex, Alex, like he was something more than special. Hands, on the back of his neck, the softness of his own hair, the feeling of that warmth again, beautiful.

Fear. And he tasted wrong, wrong, stale, his mouth, it actually hurt, the touch, as good as it felt--

“Guerin,” Alex said, into his mouth. “This isn’t a good idea.” Saying it starkly like that was a bad idea too apparently. The connection between them slammed shut. Cold. A memory of a thousand rejections, vicious, words going for the pain, even if now wasn’t like that.

Michael pulled back abruptly, like it was exactly like that, eyes gone blank. “Apologies, Captain,” he said. “You told me that already and I didn’t listen.” His eyes narrowed. “What if I clean up first, smelled less like a slut, would that help?”

“No. You know. You know that’s not what I meant,” Alex whispered, managing not to flinch from the sheer defensive rage, but barely. “You know that.”

There was a painful, too small shrug. Michael’s chest was painted in bruises too, fist shaped and darkening. “I just want to feel something else, ok? You wanted to feel something else too, before, in there. Other times. Can’t I?”

“Why?” Alex demanded miserably. 

“You make me feel real when you touch me.” Michael’s eyes were hopeless, wet misery, burning out. Alex blinked back his own tears. Shook his head, because what was he supposed to say to that? How was he even supposed to start?

Michael could feel him, damnit, he had to know where Alex was. Right?

Michael didn’t leave, at least, instead he helped Alex sit down and slide over under the shower stream instead. It was awkward, but not the worst, not physically. Michael had thought about it, what he’d need one legged and in pain, to make a shower possible. It actually felt good, clean water, even if it was from a well, even if it was limited.

He focused on getting clean, on Michael, there with him, wordlessly passing the soap and washcloth. There was still come dried on his own fucking thighs, his, Michael's, like a sick joke. They'd had sex, a fight over nothing, and he'd run out of Michael's airstream and...

There were flakes of filth, of blood running down Michael's legs. He didn’t cry out even though Alex knew he wanted to and would have if he were alone. Kept it close, teeth gritted, like it didn’t matter that Alex could feel the echoes of his pain. Like he thought if Alex couldn't actually hear him whimper they could ignore it together.

“Can I?” Alex asked, softly, trying not to ignore what he felt, reaching out with his own washcloth. Michael gave him a tight, wary nod, but allowed it.

It was horrible, so much worse than anything he could remember, every other terrible thing. The smooth wing muscle of Michael's back, shaking. The hard jut of elbows, defensive and trying not to be.

The line of hip, dip of his spine, curve of his ass, beloved. Compromised. Hands had left marks there and there had been nothing, was nothing Alex could do about it. He had been right there and--

Michael knelt down for him, so he could rub shampoo into his hair. He didn't hiss at the movement. 

They got through it, both of them, or at least the hot water tank. No choice about it.

Michael pulled out towels for them, clothes. Alex found himself pulling on an old band shirt he hadn't seen in years and a pair of Michael's sweats. It used to be oversized, but it fit ok now. Soft and much washed.

He watched Michael brush his teeth, spitting toothpaste and grossness into the sink, while Alex leaned against the wall, balance still precarious. Not that it mattered, Michael would catch him if he listed. 

After brushing his own, he grabbed the crutches and followed Michael back out into the main living area. The space was tiny but warming as the generator cranked out heat. 

"I'll lay a fire in the bedroom," Michael told him, looking back over his shoulder. 

Alex sat down on the edge of the bed, rested the crutches against the wall and curled up with his knees to his chest. The stump of his leg throbbed, feeling particularly useless. 

Michael frowned and then sat down with him, abruptly but with visible care as to how his weight was angled. Close enough for Alex to feel the heat of his body. 

"I thought you were going to do a fire," Alex said out loud, mostly to say something. 

Michael's mouth quirked and he didn't move. Instead he laid out the fire with his mind, not his body, logs floating in, fire sparking, seemingly on its own. "How's that?" He asked, raised eyebrow and that faint curl of his smile.

Alex smiled back. "Pretty cool. But you knew that."

Michael nodded. "That's me. Pretty cool kinda guy." He looked Alex over. Took a deep, painful looking breath. "Am I clean enough for you now?"

Alex winced hard and shook his head, his smile flipping off just like that. "Don't," he said.

Michael’s eyes. Just.

Alex leaned in and kissed him, just to get that look out of his eyes, just that, warm and careful, cupping his hand very gently around the back of Michael's neck. Over bruises, fingermarks. Damp curls and delicate skin, stretched over power and pain. Alex kissed with every bit of gentleness he had, all for Michael even when there was none for anyone else.

"I love you," Alex whispered. “I don't want to hurt you. This is a textbook bad idea."

Michael rolled his eyes and he got a spike of mental amusement, black humor but still, not pain. "You never have wanted to hurt me. Never once. Can you please just do what I'm asking you to instead of worrying about that?" Another deep, shuddering breath. "Please don't make me beg you." Michael was ready to. Shame, pain, sick, yawning and if Alex wouldn't-- didn't want--

That-- that. Alex swallowed. “No. You don’t have to beg me. Ever.”

He didn't move either. Michael was always the brave one, even now. Michael pulled him down. 

He didn't think he could, that his body even could, that Michael's body could--

But it was Michael, the soft damp weight of his curls, the brush of his fingers. The particular scent of him even after a shower, that you'd only get by burying your nose in his neck. Him, alive, safe, in the closed circle of Alex's arms. 

That particular feeling that had dug right into Alex's limbic system, created a hard line straight to his dick. Since he was a dumb seventeen year old virgin and the touch of Michael's hands rearranged his world. Since he was a dumb airman with a mostly empty bed that no one else had ever been able to fill, no matter how hot and bright and fucking amazing they were on paper.

And Michael whispered, "Alex, Alex please,” into his mouth. And wasn’t this worth fighting for? 

Shieldbrother, you’re the shield-brother, an ancient alien general had said and ok, yeah, he could definitely do that.

It was objectively shit sex, probably, not that he really noticed or cared. They didn’t try to get their clothes off, just hands down each other pants, fingers too rough over bruises, but Michael whimpered and shook up against him and pressed his palm over the place where Alex still had a glowing handprint shimmering on his skin. 

Michael didn’t let him go after, in a heaving, shaking lump spilled all over Alex’s body and Alex just held on, stroking fingers through his hair, curls tangling in his fingers and didn’t really even try not to cry. They lay like that for a long, long time, in the quiet, while the fire died down. 

Alex waited until Michael was definitely asleep to pull up the crutches and walk the perimeter defenses, taking mental notes of what else they could do with the resources on hand to secure things better. He might be a fucked out emotional mess, but at least now he was one that didn’t let the door to the cabin out of his sight at any time, situational awareness turned firmly on, alert as he could make himself. Nothing else was getting past him, not now, not ever. 

He managed to get back into bed while Michael was still sleeping so he called that one a win. He couldn’t remember later if he slept, or lay down in the dark, listening to soft, even breathing and feeling living warmth at his side.

There was nothing else he could allow himself to think about.

In the morning, Michael made coffee on the stove, drank a glass with an acetone chaser and then called Liz on the satellite phone. 

"Why Liz?" Alex asked before he made the call. He was sitting on an old chair with an ancient cushion on it. Michael didn't sit, just leaned his hip against the counter.

"I need to warn them, in case someone tries this shit with Max or Is," he said, looking back up at Alex. "I can explain it to her from the perspective where she doesn't need to show up here with the calvary."

Alex's shoulders hunched in. Picturing Liz Ortecho and her rages and rides to the rescue. Seemed unlikely that there wouldn't be cavalry, but Michael seemed sure. "How are you gonna do that?"

"Professionally. She understands what a quarantine is and why you don't breach it."

Alex nodded. "Don't tell her about--"

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Michael interrupted with an almost laugh. "No sharing and caring. But we need to warn them. And they can't come here, it's not safe."

So Alex watched Michael talk on the phone. His face was more animated when he did it, the bruises seeming more natural. A bar fight. Bad day with a bronco. Ride a cowboy.

Not I got tied down and. And.

"Crazy army goons, Ortecho," Michael said, gesturing sharply at Alex, like he was trying to get him to stop thinking so loud. "With an alien pulling their strings."

A pause. "Nah, we're good. I stocked up for zombies on the perimeter, Alex and I can last through the apocalypse out here."

Michael sighed. Looked at Alex with a shrug. "Yeah, I'll put him on."

Alex is usually good at this. He's had years of practice, what's Michael Guerin looking at him with steady, bruised eyes, like walking wounded. He could lie about that. "Hey, Liz," he took the phone and cradled it in his hand. It was warm. 

"What's going on? What's Mikey downplaying?" she demanded right off. 

"Guerin's a drama king," Alex heard coming out of his own mouth. "What downplaying?" That didn't even make sense and he sounded like a dick. Shit.

"Alex," Liz hissed. "Do you need help? I can take precautions, we do have quarantine gear at the hospital."

Alex had to laugh. Where to start? "It's not that kind of problem, unless you have psychic quarantines."

"Do you need help?" She repeated. "Don't make me throw caution to the wind and show up there with my own idiot alien. I can tell Mikey is terrified of that."

Alex tried to formulate a reassuring response. Yeah, yeah, all good. We're fine, just taking some precautions. The words that came out of his mouth were more like, "If they come for you, shoot to kill. Don't let them take you, they--" he swallowed. Stopped himself. "Look, it's a shitty situation."

There's a pause, a harsh breath. "Alex," she said shortly. 

"Don't come, it's too dangerous." 

“Are you ok?” she asked, fierce and sword sharp, and everything Alex wanted to protect, everything that needed to be safe. He’d failed Michael, he wasn’t going to fail anyone else, never again.

“Yes,” he said. “I am.” No matter what she did next, Alex had a feeling they’d have company before too long.

After the call was over, Michael took him back over to a trap door in the floorboards, where he’d decided to keep the gun locker. He opened it up and handed over the keys to Alex, easily. Not like he couldn’t get the lock open with his powers anyway. "I want you to keep one on you,” he said, as if Alex wasn’t relieved to do just that. He’d already palmed a safety pin that could double as a lockpick in his sleeve. “We need a back up plan."

Alex frowned because he knew that Michael didn’t mean the same thing he did by that. "What do you mean, back up plan? What are we expecting?"

Michael looked rueful, and he smiled faintly, like this was funny. "I’m still me, right? But if Rath’s not gone, if-- if I turn on you after all, turn on myself-- we need a way to make sure you can kill me before I get out of here." 

Alex swallowed. “That’s not an option. You don’t deserve to die. I won’t let you die.”

Michael’s expression was tired. Torn open and pretty done with everything. “I’m just one guy, Alex. And him-- he’s a killer. He’s been a killer, and a strategist and a general for thousands of years. Me? I’ve been a drunk asshole on this planet for twenty-one, was a clone for about seven before then? I don’t like my odds.” 

Alex couldn’t stop staring, shaking his head. “I’m one guy too and he knows what you know, why wouldn’t he just kill me if it came down to that? I’m good but I’m not General Rath of Antar.”

“He won’t, even if he turns on you, you’ll be able to--” Michael whispered. “He loves you.”

That made Alex pause for a long second. Then he shook it off, biting down on his lower lip. “Yeah, no, that’s you, Guerin. And if it’s him too, I’m not worried.” It felt like relief, but maybe not.

Michael’s eyes slitted half closed and he muttered something that sounded a lot like that he didn’t want to do this himself. Alex took that thought in, turned it over in his mind and decided to add it to the list of countermeasures he might need to take. It wasn’t an issue right at this moment. 

“Come here,” Alex said, and Michael sighed and did, stepping easy and unflinching into Alex’s arms. Alex held on.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: I don't do partner betrayal fic and I don't do totally bleak hopeless endings.
> 
> Let me know what you think! Feedback feeds me and is motivating as hell :)
> 
> You can also find me as ninhursag at dreamwidth https://ninhursag.dreamwidth.org/ or ninswhimsy on Tumblr if you want to talk at me!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Janus](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22457989) by [christchex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/christchex/pseuds/christchex)


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